Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone. --Vonnegut

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Let's Try to Keep an Open Mind

Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own. -- Sir James M. Barrie

To what extent can we know another's motives?

Are people opposed to same-sex marriage homophobic bigots? Or do they value tradition or religious beliefs more than allowing gay people to get married? Are they torn about the issue, pulled one way by their hearts and another by their religious convictions?

Are supporters of abortion irresponsible, immoral sluts who want to escape the consequences of their actions? Or do they believe that a woman has sovereignty over her body or that the costs of criminalizing abortion are too steep? Are they torn?

Are politicians whores who will say anything for a vote or idealists who are working within the system as well as they can? (Okay, probably whores.)

Lately, I've been reading some conservative-leaning blogs which routinely assume bad -- or bizarre -- motives for liberals' actions. They seem to assume liberals do everything out of misplaced guilt or a shallow desire to pat themselves on the back for being politically correct.

I've been making the same mistake about conservatives' motives. I've assumed that many vociferous opponents of illegal immigration are barely-disguised racists and that opponents of welfare and affirmative action don't care about the poor and minorities.

I think it's time we stop assuming. If someone does one thing and says another, we may point it out. If one admits to a motive we find reprehensible we should argue forcefully with them. But if someone takes a position without stating a motive, or claims a motive about which we are skeptical but have no counter-evidence, let's stick to the arguments presented rather than arguing about what's going on inside other people's brains.

13 comments:

Agreed. Other things always seem to divert us from the hard slogging of debating the pros and cons of a contentious issue.

Only God knows what's in people's hearts, and deflecting attention to people's motives tends to generate all heat, no light.

Similarly, I am deeply concerned about the polarization of American society, where people seem to follow party lines rather than look at the merits of an argument. That isn't so much about motives as about power. Everybody wants their group to gain the upper hand, so they can shape society according to their predilections. I think it's a natural consequence of being such a powerful country — everybody wants to be the one who wields that power.

Broadly speaking you can never know what someone is *really* thinking. You can only make informed guesses from what they say & what they do. Divining motives, beliefs or predictions of future behaviour is an art.... but not altogether a futile activity...

JA echoes Luke 6:37 (Judge not...) and other verses where we are warned against indulging in our fallen human tendency to think we know what we cannot know.

I see this tendency everywhere I turn including the mirror, especially when criticizing another's personal religious or political beliefs. I am acutely aware of how complex I am yet I, instinctively it seems, see others as two-dimensional twits...square pegs that I can pound into those available round holes.

Such judgementalism is usually fades away in the face of a personal relationship, even if the actions still seem disagreeable.